'This Week' Transcript: Allen, Kerry and Cornyn

June 6, 2010

Adm. Thad Allen, Sen. John Kerry and Sen. John Cornyn to appear on ?This Week?

ABC News

TAPPER: Good morning. For the first time, we've been told the flow
of oil gushing from the well has slowed thanks to that containment
dome. Yet on the surface, oil is now washing ashore in four Gulf
states, including Florida, as more than 20,000 workers scramble to keep
pace with the spreading slick.

ALLEN: In the last 24 hours from midnight last night to midnight
this last night, they collected just about 10,000 barrels.

TAPPER: OK, and the CEO of BP, Anthony Hayward, has said he
anticipates it will be able to contain the majority of the oil. Do you
agree?

ALLEN: That's correct if it's operating properly. What they're
trying to do is take the pressure in the wellbore and actually produce
oil -- take the pressure off and to evacuate the oil. We're not going

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to know how much oil is coming out until we're able to optimize the
production, and that's what they're doing right now. They are slowly
raising production. It was 6,000 a day before and it was 10,000 yesterday.

TAPPER: We heard a lot of talk about in 1993, the Saudis had an oil
spill and they used these huge tankers to vacuum up the oil. How come
that isn't being done with this spill?

ALLEN: We actually talked to those folks. There are a couple of
issues with that. Number one, the tankers actually have to be

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modified. They're not ready to go right now. Number two, we don't know
what those modifications will do to the stability of the vessels and how
they operate. Number there, the area of operation is very, very
different. We've got anywhere from 20 to 30 vessels within a one square
mile over the top of that well at any particular time, managing remotely
operated vehicles, doing the drilling the relief wells and so forth, so
it's not -- I'm not sure it's the right application for that technology.

TAPPER: I just got back from Grand Isle, Louisiana. When I was
down there, I was told about the huge oil slick headed towards the
coast. I was told it was four miles wide, 30 miles long, maybe four to
12 inches thick. What can you tell us about that?

ALLEN: Well, what we're trying to do is fight this thing offshore.
And this is a war. It's an insidious war, because it's attacking, you
know, four states one at a time, and it comes from different directions
depending on the weather. Offshore skimmers are the way to handle it,
because we can do in situ burning above the well. But once it gets
close to shore, it's got to be mechanical skimming and getting it as far
offshore as we can.

TAPPER: Is there a big oil slick that size coming--

ALLEN: There are a number of slicks. One of the problems with this
entire spill is it's not a monolithic, huge spill. Depending on when
the oil came to the surface and the wind and the current, it's
disaggregated itself into hundreds, maybe thousands of smaller pieces of
oil. So we're trying to fight it on a lot of different fronts.

TAPPER: What about these enormous underwater plumes we keep hearing
about?